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4.6.14

(This column of Readily a Parent originally appeared in The Western Star on June 04, 2014)

On Thursday, May 29, our province’s MHAs proved once again
what obnoxious, uncaring, asses they can all be. Yeah, I’m not mincing words on
this one. I, for one, am sick of the antics of these supposed adults and the
ongoing ridiculousness of the name-calling, bullying, verbal grandstanding, and
general lack of concern that is often shown by our elected representatives when
discussing important provincial matters in the House of Assembly.

Seriously, you could gather a cartload of monkeys and
witness more decorum than we often do in our House of Assembly.

Other observers and writers have commented on what happened
when Gerry Rogers, MHA, stood to present a petition to bring back the Family
Violence Intervention Court. There were some interruptions and interjections
from the nut gallery during her speaking time – pretty typical for the House.
But it all ended badly, disgusting in fact, when she stated that bringing back
the court would not cost much. The assembled ministers chose that point to
start laughing. Not tittering and ripples of giggles, hard belly laughter, the
mocking kind you typically hear from a schoolyard of children intent upon an embarrassed
target.

Actually, no, children don’t often do that anymore. They’ve
learned to respect others and schools rarely tolerate such ridicule of other
children.

What we can’t tell from reading the Hansard or watching thewebcast of the day’s Assembly is whether that laughter is directed at Rogers
and her statements or at something else entirely. Evidence points to them
laughing at Rogers as once she sits and her fellow NDP MHA George Murphy stands
to discuss the oh-so important matter of vehicle insurance you can hear her in
the background answering to comments from the nut gallery.

And yet, when Murphy stands to plea the fact that the people
in this province who can afford cars, gas, registration, licenses but not
insurance are not people who don’t know how to prioritise but indeed victims of
too high insurance , he also has a big grin on his face and stands mid laugh.

So, is her own fellow NDP MHA laughing at her? Is he
laughing at some response made to those laughing (the timeframe doesn’t suit
that explanation)? Or is the laughter about something else entirely? (I asked on Twitter but he didn't respond)

Well, we could discuss that for more days than the House
meets and never get an answer. Unless someone who was actually there tells the
truth about what happened, exactly.

What happened, observationally, is that Rogers was
discussing a socially and economically important matter and during that
discussion her fellow MHAs started laughing disruptively.

What really doesn’t matter is why they were laughing. If
they were laughing at her it’s more disgusting, but if they were laughing at
some other, distracting event it’s just as bad. Even my kids know better than
to laugh about anything during a serious discussion. It would be interesting to speak to the
parents of our MHAs to see if they were actually proud of their children on
that day. Their actions were not something I would hold up to my children as
evidence of adult behaviour and a proud position to strive for. The fact is,
during meetings of the House, their actions rarely are something to show my
children as an example of what I want to see from them. In this case, in
particular though, their behaviour was abhorrent and they should apologise to
the people of this province.

All of this discussion serves – perhaps intentionally? – to distract
both our MHAs and our media away from the point of Rogers’ petition. A point
that was ridiculed either directly or through distraction by that laughter.

Reinstating the Family Violence Intervention Court is no
laughing matter and should be seriously discussed. Instead it has, once again,
been swept away distractedly under a sea of other provincial concerns. And the
matter still hangs in the air. The PCs may see it as a fait accompli that it
has been closed and the project ended, but until our province’s women and
families receive a response as to why, exactly, it was chosen for the chopping
block, the discussion will continue to arise.

It seems every time the Family Violence Intervention Court
discussion comes up, it is quickly ended again. Back in 2009, when then Justice
Minister Tom Marshall introduced the court to the House of Assembly and the
media he said “I look forward to watching the court grow and seeing the positive impact
it has upon our community.” He explained that it was a pilot project and
that depending on the evaluation of its impact, it would grow – one suspects to
other parts of the province.

According to Rogers, Premier Marshall now says that the court
was ended not because it was too costly or didn’t work but that because it was
favouritism for St. John’s to have the court and not other parts of the
province. And yet, the project was started by Marshall himself as a pilot
project for possible expansion. The budget for the first year was almost
$300,000. A couple of years later it was running at close to $500,000 and
maintaining. Simple math would have one surmise that to spread this court
system to Central, Western, and Labrador would mean an annual running budget of
$2 million. Not a lot, really, in our provincial justice budget.

Of course, simple math doesn’t work in this province. As
someone who has lived many years “beyond the overpass,” I can tell you that the
services aren’t already in place to simply plunk a family violence court in
those areas and expect it to work. Such courts require accountability and input
from several areas of justice and community services. They require a commitment
to counselling for offenders and victims. And they require that those services
be available on an ongoing basis.

Perhaps the reason our government doesn’t want to discuss
spreading the Family Violence Intervention Court to other parts of the province
is because it doesn’t want to discuss why the budget would grow exponentially
as they struggled to put services in place that should already be there.

Maybe that’s not it. Maybe there’s a perfectly valid reason
why they’ve decided not to expand the original pilot project. But until someone
actually opens their mouth to talk and not laugh, we’ll never know.

19.9.13

Column originally appeared in The Western Star, Corner Brook, NL Sept 11, 2013. Warning: This column contains lyrics and information that
may be troubling to some and could trigger a highly emotional reaction. Please
read with caution and protection for your emotional health.

I’m not going to rant, because I’m tired of ranting. Ranting does nothing. It
makes me feel better momentarily, like crying when you’re upset. But without
the thing that upsets me changing, neither crying nor ranting will resolve the
issue.

People like me talk and write a lot about issues like this.
The problem is that we are only listening to each other. The people who need to
hear us don’t because they brush us off for “over-reacting” or being “too
feminist” or “too serious.” Trust me, I’ve heard those phrases a lot.

So I’m done ranting. Instead I’m going to present some
facts.

The Canadian news
scene exploded last week with revelations of a chant at St. Mary’s University
Frosh week that promoted rape and underage sex. Well, actually, explosion is an
overstatement. There was a lot of attention, but the tough questions, the ones
that should’ve been asked, weren’t. My first response was “how long has this
been going on? Have their been previous complaints? Was the university
administration aware of this?”

The media’s first response was to treat it like a he
said/she said issue and get feedback from students on what they thought. A big
part of the response was sympathy for the student union that allowed this chant
and the punishment and stigma they were now facing. The excuse? The chant had
been around for ages and they just never thought about it.

I’m not going to rant, I promise.

The lyrics of this offensive chant make it difficult to
believe their story. How anyone could say the words:

Y is for your sister,
O is for oh so tight,
U is for underage,
N is for no consent,
G is for grab that ass

without thinking that maybe what they were saying was
inappropriate is entirely implausible.

They knew it was offensive. That is why they took such joy
in chanting it. The video of the incident at Saint Mary’s University shows that
this was a celebratory, revelling chant.

Later, students at UBC also performed the same chant at
their frosh week activities. Except their last line was “G is for go to jail.”

Let’s examine that shall we?

Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter said he couldn’t believe students would
chant something so bad, especially in their province where they are well aware
of these sensitivities.

However, facts and statistics gathered by a local Halifax
women’s centre tell a different story. The Avalon Centre has gathered
Statistics Canada and Department of Justice stats on sexual assault, reporting,
and sentencing in Nova Scotia.

They report that in 2007 (the last year of reliable published numbers):

Nova Scotia had a reported sexual assault
rate of 75 per 100,000 people compared to the national rate of 65 per
100,000 people.

Only 30% of reported sexual
assaults had charges laid. This percentage was the lowest of all the provinces
and territories. The national average was 42%

The acquittal rate for sexual assaults in Nova Scotia was
13%. The rate was only 6% for other violent offences.

The rate of police-reported sexual assault in Halifax
Regional Municipality (HRM) in 2007 was 87 per 100,000. There is an average of
one sexual assault reported every day.

Only 22% of sexual assaults reported in HRM had a charge
laid. In comparison, 49% of other violent offences reported had charges laid
during that same period.

According to Statistics Canada, 88% of rape goes unreported.
So looking at the Nova Scotia statistics under that additional lens, we can see
– generally speaking - that in Halifax alone there are about five rapes a day,
with only 1 of those being reported.

Each week, of the 7 reported cases, only 2
have charges laid. At the end of the month, of the 8 offenders charged, 1 is
acquitted. So after a month of 150 rapes, 7 rapists face possible sentencing.
That’s just in the Halifax area. However, even then, 41% of those convicted (as
compared to 10% of those convicted of other violent crimes) will receive
conditional sentencing only.

So, 150 rapes means 4 rapists go to jail. And that’s just in
Halifax.

While the chant that’s been repeated at UBC for over 20
years, according to student reports, ends in “go to jail,” most rapes don’t end
that way.

Most end with terrified, intimidated, broken women and men
trying to reclaim their lives while their rapists live free, chanting and
having fun. And when their rapists are charged and go to jail, they, like the
student leaders who support their activities through their chants, get sympathy
for the unfair punishment they face.

How a chant can be sung at a university for over 20 years
and the administration not be aware of it, I don’t know. I suspect they were
aware and chose to do nothing, just as Premier Dexter must be aware of the rape
statistics in his province and chooses to not talk about them.

Just as, here at home, the Engineering facility at Memorial
is perfectly aware of a sexually offensive and inappropriate mug created by
their student society to celebrate back-to-school. A mug featuring a
provocative cartoon pose of a woman with the phrase “If she’s thirsty, give her
the D(day)” is a play on the phrase “if she’s thirsty give her the D(dick).”
The students here at Memorial are facing the same kind of “discipline” the
students at Saint Mary’s and UBC face: issue an apology and learn some
sensitivity.

It takes time to reform our justice system and time to
change a culture, but none of it will happen until we change our mindset.
Currently we’re working and living in a rape culture that excuses and even
mocks sexual assault. The only way to change that is to start with our young.
Instead of ranting at each other about how horrible it all is, we need to talk
to our children, calmly and reasonably, to show them how they can change this.

I wish these student’s parents had done that. But they
didn’t. It’s our turn now. How will you keep your sons and daughters from
following in their footsteps?

4.9.13

(originally published in The Western Star, Corner Brook, NL Sept. 04, 2013)

This week I bring my youngest son to his first day of
school.

My eldest is entering the Elementary grades, and my little
princess will be twirling her way through grade two.

It seems too fast and long awaited all at once.

I’m looking forward to a bit of quiet to do my work in, but
I’m not looking forward to no longer being able to spontaneously go on daytrips
or outings without working around the school schedule, homework, and the
everlasting “we need groceries – you’re out of school snacks!” concern.

It’s stressful, for sure. For them and us. Like, kids who
refuse to get out of bed, making everyone late. Somehow your employer can
understand this better than their schools can. And the field trip forms that
never make it home for some reason (thank God their new school uses email for
important things). And always, the constant need for supplies of one kind or
another…

But it’s also exciting. Especially the firsts! This first
day in Kindergarten will be my last. And then there’s all the firsts my eldest
has already accomplished. For some reason I suspect that “first time solving a
calculus problem” is not going to seem so monumental as his “first time
understanding multiplication.”

It should though.

For older children, the excitement wears off and all that
stays is the stress. And there’s more stress in Junior High and High School.
The assignments are harder, the extracurriculars more competitive, the supplies
more expensive.

But the things they learn! Their first time reading
Steinbeck and Hemmingway (for God’s sake, please look at their reading lists
and make sure they read The Red Pony before The Pearl and ANYTHING by
Hemmingway before The Old Man and The Sea). And the first time they truly
understand a quote from Shakespeare – strange English and all.

There’s the calculus and the stoichiometry. The first
electrical circuit they’ll build in Physics. Their first real exams and the
first time they’ll get cut from a team because they’re just not as good as
their peers.

There’s their first heartbreak too.

For some reason, as parents, we let the excitement wear away
each year. Their first day of Kindergarten is a nerve-wrackingly proud moment
equalled only by their last day of Grade 12. And all that’s in between gets
lost somehow into a routine of packed lunches and transportation arrangements.

Grade four is the first year my son has been asked to bring
pens to school as his supplies. Pens! That means that he is now expected to
write tidily (he can’t) and to know enough not to make constant mistakes. Pens!
The trust his teachers have put in him to use ink on paper is a monumental
thing. Most adults don’t even do that anymore, tapping away at our word
processing programs and using spellcheck. By the end of this year he’ll have
created more handwritten output than I have in the past five, I’m sure.

My daughter started to make best friends last year. And over
the summer a girl at daycamp became her first real bosom buddy. This school
year: perhaps her first best friend for the rest of her life? The social life
flourishes so much this year. And if all runs according to how it did for her
brother, this will be her first year reading and reporting on a chapter book
for school. Up until now, they’ve concentrated on building the actual skills to
read and write, this is the year it starts to gel together into reading and
formally responding.

How can these firsts be any less important or monumental
than the first time my youngest walks through a classroom door with the
dedication to stay and play and work there every year for the next thirteen?

If teens today are like myself and my friends were, they’re
playing it cool for you but they’re worried senseless that they’ve picked the
wrong school clothes. They’re secretly skimming through their school supplies,
pretending to check that they’ve put their name on them, but actually wondering
which colour binder will be best for their first year doing Physics and in
which class they’ll meet the boy or girl whose name they’re going to write all
over the cover of that binder in hearts.

They’re worried and excited, just like my five-year-old and,
well, you should be too. The worry is always there, I know, but encourage them
to share their excitement. Talk to them of your high school firsts. Let them
know it’s okay to be worried, but even more so, let them know it’s okay to be
excited.

They’ve made it so far, accomplished so much, and now their
goals and accomplishments are so much larger that they should be even more
exciting, not less so, than all those early firsts.

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